St. Practice Day..
Feb. 16th, 2007 03:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captain_philAn Article about the Great Guinness Toast.
By Bob Batz Jr., Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A mind-boggling number of watering holes in this region and beyond are participating in tomorrow's Great Guinness Toast.
Enthusiasts around the world are to raise their pints at 11 p.m. (regardless of time zone) to hang onto the world record toast. For the first time, many of them will in fact be texting the word "toast" to 44227 to be counted.
You may have heard of the toast, but did you know the event started right here in Pittsburgh? Dave Egan of Mullaney's Harp & Fiddle in the Strip District -- where The X (WXDX 105.9 FM) will be broadcasting it live -- says drinkers there were among those who got the ball rolling back in 1992. What's now a worldwide quest to up the world record started as a small local promotion by A.M. Lutheran Distributing in West Mifflin.
That's confirmed by Brian Croughan, Western Pennsylvania market manager for Diageo-Guinness USA, which now owns the Irish brewery. The event, also known as St. Practice Day as it happens before St. Patrick's Day, is in its 15th year here, but only in its 14th nationally.
Lutheran's marketing director, Deanna Lutheran Bucy, says the idea was cooked up by the beer distributor with the late Roger Willoughby-Ray, its Guinness-loving advertising executive, and they launched the event at Mullaney's and couple dozen other local bars. She still has a copy of the "Pittsburgh Book of Local Records" he created.
Guinness picked up the event the next year, and it's mushroomed. According to Guinness World Records in London, the standing record for a simultaneous toast is 462,572 people who participated in the Great Guinness Toast on Feb. 23, 2001 (based on reporting by participating establishments).
Tomorrow night is the first time Guinness will keep an actual count with the cell phone texting. Hundreds of thousands will raise a pint of the stout and toast. Thousands will be participating in some 500 bars just in this region. Mr. Croughan will be in the crowd at the Harp & Fiddle, where there's a $5 cover; Seamus Kennedy will be performing, too (www.harpandfiddle.com or 412-642-6622).
Guinness is partnering with, and making a donation to, the nonprofit group RADD, or Recording Artists, Actors, and Athletes Against Drunk Driving, "the entertainment industry's voice for road safety."
The toast changes each year, and this year it'll go like this:
"Hold your pint high. And look all about,
"A legion of Guinness, the world's favourite stout.
"May you find the true wisdom of what matters most,
"A great pint of Guinness, and a Great Guinness Toast."
By Bob Batz Jr., Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A mind-boggling number of watering holes in this region and beyond are participating in tomorrow's Great Guinness Toast.
Enthusiasts around the world are to raise their pints at 11 p.m. (regardless of time zone) to hang onto the world record toast. For the first time, many of them will in fact be texting the word "toast" to 44227 to be counted.
You may have heard of the toast, but did you know the event started right here in Pittsburgh? Dave Egan of Mullaney's Harp & Fiddle in the Strip District -- where The X (WXDX 105.9 FM) will be broadcasting it live -- says drinkers there were among those who got the ball rolling back in 1992. What's now a worldwide quest to up the world record started as a small local promotion by A.M. Lutheran Distributing in West Mifflin.
That's confirmed by Brian Croughan, Western Pennsylvania market manager for Diageo-Guinness USA, which now owns the Irish brewery. The event, also known as St. Practice Day as it happens before St. Patrick's Day, is in its 15th year here, but only in its 14th nationally.
Lutheran's marketing director, Deanna Lutheran Bucy, says the idea was cooked up by the beer distributor with the late Roger Willoughby-Ray, its Guinness-loving advertising executive, and they launched the event at Mullaney's and couple dozen other local bars. She still has a copy of the "Pittsburgh Book of Local Records" he created.
Guinness picked up the event the next year, and it's mushroomed. According to Guinness World Records in London, the standing record for a simultaneous toast is 462,572 people who participated in the Great Guinness Toast on Feb. 23, 2001 (based on reporting by participating establishments).
Tomorrow night is the first time Guinness will keep an actual count with the cell phone texting. Hundreds of thousands will raise a pint of the stout and toast. Thousands will be participating in some 500 bars just in this region. Mr. Croughan will be in the crowd at the Harp & Fiddle, where there's a $5 cover; Seamus Kennedy will be performing, too (www.harpandfiddle.com or 412-642-6622).
Guinness is partnering with, and making a donation to, the nonprofit group RADD, or Recording Artists, Actors, and Athletes Against Drunk Driving, "the entertainment industry's voice for road safety."
The toast changes each year, and this year it'll go like this:
"Hold your pint high. And look all about,
"A legion of Guinness, the world's favourite stout.
"May you find the true wisdom of what matters most,
"A great pint of Guinness, and a Great Guinness Toast."
